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Equality and Economy: The Global ChallengePublisher:Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press
Copyright:2005
Pages:vii + 241
Review:
Michael Blim has issued a wake-up call to anthropologists. In the past several decades, we have provided critiques of modernization, globalization, and “the West.”
Anthropologists have objected to the spread of capitalism and its marginalizing effects on people at the periphery. We have questioned the financial power of the IMF and the ideological impact of the Washington consensus. All the while we try to preserve a shred of our flagstone idea: cultural relativism. But are we addressing today’s global problems of inadequate health care, malnutrition, unequal work opportunities, educational disparities, and glaring wealth differences? Many anthropologists have been involved in helpful projects around the world, but we shy from developing macroplans, perhaps in fear of providing a metanarrative or forsaking our anchor in value relativism. Blim returns us to the real world. He argues for adopting equality as a universal human value, suggests ways it might be implemented in programs, and presents overwhelming evidence of the gross inequalities that we accept at home and around the globe. The individual pieces of his story are not new, but its assemblage and the consistency of his argument are. Blim starts with the Aristotelian concept of “happiness” or “flourishing” as the only virtue that people select as an end for its own sake (as opposed to something selected for the sake of something else). He then works to the idea that all humans should be able to achieve well-being as a product of their “functionings,” by which he means something like Amartya Sen’s capability approach to human happiness. Because this right to self-fulfillment is part of the modern experience, all humans must be equipped with this capacity. In effect, Blim is arguing for more than the right to choose (which is “positive freedom” in Isaiah Berlin’s sense or “opportunity freedom” in Sen’s); individuals must be provided with the social and economic capacities to exercise this liberty. To judge whether this standard is being met, we cannot just consider the average faculties of a group or society, we must take into account individual handicaps and rectify inequities imposed by race, gender, class, and physical differences so that everyone has the capacity to combine his or her different functionings to achieve a satisfying life. I imagine that this value-based argument will not sit well with some anthropologists, but it aligns Blim with contemporary philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin in addition to the economist Sen. Blim’s model of flourishing leads him to argue that the highest value ought to be equality in the political, social, and, especially, economic spheres because equality underlies all the other requisites for realizing a fulfilling existence. This argument contrasts sharply with the contemporary nostrums that we should try to achieve greater economic growth (with trickle-down); foster more economic efficiency through the spread of markets and microentrepreneurs; wage a war on poverty; weaken or strengthen the state; or nurture sustainability. Such policies, he says, should be redesigned to realize equality in opportunities and in the distribution of outcomes. As the reader may suspect, institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF are criticized and so are many vaunted programs such as women’s microlending groups, producer and consumer cooperatives, and nongovernmental organizations to the extent that they do not achieve equality. Ultimately, Blim argues for creating a “good enough” economy that fosters some growth but with equity, pluralistic values, partially controlled trade, and a variety of new programs that create equality through taxation and redistribution. I was struck by Blim’s forthright value position and by the worldwide prevalence of inequities that his moral stance leads him to reveal. Whether his argument will “take” with anthropologists remains to be seen; however, Blim uses little anthropology to make his case. This absence may be an indictment of our discipline, but Blim might have used some of our ideas to advantage. For example, I should like to have seen a more social and cultural understanding of concepts such as “capabilities” and “flourishing.” Happiness is not only individually achieved but also reflects social relationships and the well-being of others. In addition, an anthropological perspective might explore more deeply the contradiction between valuing universal equality and valuing cultural differences. But I recommend this thoughtful book for its salutary return to the real world, for its challenge to anthropologists, and for its use in courses.
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